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tv   Wednesday in Parliament  BBC News  April 27, 2017 2:30am-3:01am BST

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the latest headlines for you on bbc news: after days of military manoeuvres, the us has said it wants to push for tighter sanctions and more diplomacy to end north korea's nuclear and missile programmes. it wants china to agree to do the same. a bbc investigation has revealed the scale of organ trafficking in egypt, with thousands of illegal operations taking place each year. venezuela has announced it will withdraw from the organisation of american states, accusing it of trying to meddle in the country's internal affairs. the foreign minister said she was acting against foreign intervention. tributes have been flowing for the oscar—winning film—maker jonathan demme, who's died aged 73. he was probably best known for directing the silence of the lambs but also made the ground—breaking aids drama, philadelphia. now on bbc news, it's time for a look back at the day in parliament. hello.
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welcome to the programme. as theresa may and jeremy corbyn face each other in the commons, one last time before the election. labour will guarantee the triple lock and treat pensioners with respect. unable to defend our country. determined to raise tax on ordinary workers, no plan to manage our economy. even his own supporters know he's not fit to run this country. peers ask what will brexit mean for the sharing of your personal data? and, how would you define an extremist? but first, it lasted almost an hour and was full of soundbites and slogans. the last prime minister's questions before the general election was certainly a rumbustious affair.
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jeremy corbyn questioned theresa may on pensions and the nhs, but he began with pay. i start, mr speaker, with christopher, who wrote to me this week and he says; in the last five years, my husband has had only a 1% increase in his wages. the cost—of—living has risen each year. we now have at least 15% less buying power than then. so where is christopher and his husband's share in the stronger economy? what we know and what i can say to christopher is that he will have a choice at the next election, a choice between the strong and stable leadership of the conservatives, which will secure our economy for the future and a labour party, which would crash our economy and which would mean less money for public services and the ordinary working families would pay the price. the labour leader moved on to the campaign by the so called waspi women, seeking to overturn pension changes for women born in the 1950s. maureen wrote to me this week.
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if i was you, i would listen to what maureen has to say, i really would. because she writes, and she writes with a heavy heart: we have been treated disgustingly, most of us women born in the 1950s will not be receiving our pension until we are 66 with no notification of this drastic change. we have worked for 45 years and have accrued more than enough to be paid our pension. people want what is rightfully theirs. maureen asks, what can be done to help the waspi women? what i would say to the issue that maureen's raised is that the government's taken steps to help these women. we have put extra funding
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in and is available and we have ensured there is a limit to the period of time that is affected in relation to the changes. but if the right honourable gentleman wants to talk about pensions and pensioners looking to the future, once again there'll be a very clear choice at this election, a clear choice between a labour party who in government saw the increase in basic state pension of 75p in one year and a conservative government whose changes to pensions mean basic state pensioners are £1,250 better off. millions of waspi women will have heard that answer, as have the other questions i've put not been answered today. i simply say this — labour will guarantee the triple lock. labour will treat pensioners with respect and we won't move the goalposts to people looking forward to retirement. cybil who witnessed the labour
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founding of the national health service which made healthcare available for the many, notjust the few, wrote to me this week and she says this: i'm 88 and have had a wonderful service from the national health service. but nowadays, i'm scared at the thought of going into hospital. with more people waiting more than four hours in the a&e, more people waiting on trolleys in corridors, more delayed discharges, mr speaker, thanks to the tory cuts, isn't cybil right to be frightened about the future of her nhs so long as this government remains in office? well, can ijust say to the right honourable gentleman on the national health service, our national health service is now treating more patients than it ever has before. we are seeing more people having operations, we are seeing more doctors, more nurses, more midwives, more gps and record levels of funding into our national health service. theresa may said the government would be campaigning on its record
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and she turned to a campaign she said was being run by labour's diane abbott. she has directed her supporters and followers to a website, "i like corbyn but." laughter. it says, how will he pay for all this? but... i've heard he wants to increase taxes. but, i've heard he's a terrorist sympathiser. but, his attitudes about defence worry me. they are right to be worried. unable to defend our country, determined to raise tax on ordinary workers, no plan to manage our economy. even his own supporters know he's not fit to run this country. will the prime minister give a clear unambiguous commitment to maintaining the triple lock on the state pension?
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i've been very clear that under this conservative government we have seen pensioners benefit as a result of what we have done to the basic state pension. to the tune of £1,250 a year and i am clear that, under a conservative government, pension and incomes would continue to increase. pensioners right across this land are right to conclude that this tory prime minister plans to ditch the triple lock on the state pension. mr speaker, too many women already face pensions inequality and the tories now won't even guarantee the pensions triple lock and the only reason that they'll not guarantee it is because they want to cut pensions. is not the message to pensioners, you cannot trust this
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prime minister, you cannot trust the tories on your pension. i say to everybody as i've just said, if you want to know the party in government that has improved a lot of pensioners across this country, it's the conservative party and, under a conservative government those pensioner incomes would continue to increase. and, he talks about inequality for women. it's the change in the structure of the state pension introduced by this government that is going to improve a lot of women, female pensioners in the future, that is going to be much better for them. in the nine months that the prime minister's held her office, she has closed the door on desperate child refugees, she has ignored, ignored the plight of those suffering under the crisis of health and social care and she is responsible
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for the shameful rape clause. 20 years ago, she berated the conservative party for being the nasty party, but her party has never been nastier. the legacy of this parliament is the utter abject failure of her majesty's official opposition to effectively hold her government to account for any of it. is it not time that britain had a strong, decent new opposition? well, first of all let me pick up the point he made on child refugees. this government has a proud record on taking in child refugees. we have been the second bilateral donor to the region in order to support millions of refugees, to educate children, as i saw when i visited jordan recently. of course, we've also supported some of the most vulnerable refugees, including children three bringing them here to make a new life in the united kingdom kingdom.
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a reference there to the fact that the lib dems had reselected former mp david ward to fight the seat of bradford east. mr ward had been accused of anti—semitism and shortly after pmqs tim farron sacked him as the party's candidate. well, with this parliament rapidly coming to a close, there were just a last handful of bills to deal with. mps approved changes to the criminal finances bill which aims to tackle money laundering and corruption, counter terrorist financing and recover the proceeds of crime. they also debated final amendments to the bill that changes the way higher education is regulated in england and creates a new body called the office for students. finally mps rejected changes made to the digital economy bill by peers.
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the bill includes a range of measures to tighten regulation on online pornography, ticket touts and broadband speeds. the minister said the government couldn't accept an amendment from peers on a code of practice for social media platform providers on online abuse. we agree with the spirit of the amendment that was agreed in the other place. we take harm caused by online abuse seriously. we offer an alternative clause that we think would achieve the intended outcome and form part of our work to tackle serious harms and online threats and improve internet safety in the next parliament. 0ur amendment in lieu seeks to provide a code of practice that will help protect users of online services and set out the behaviour expected of social media companies. the code is intended to give guidance for how social media providers should respond to harmful behaviour such as bullying.
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there's good work being done by some companies to prevent the use of platforms for illegal purposes and potential criminal conduct where reported to the police will continue to be libel to investigation as with any other offence. 0n the social media conduct, we are delighted the government's taken a decisive step in the right direction. this amendment requires the secretary of state to issue a code of practise for online social media platforms in relation to bullying, directing insults or other behaviour intended to intimidate or humiliate. while social media's brought transformative and significa nt change for the good, it's facilitated an exponential increase in bullying. seven in ten have experienced cyber bullying, with 37% experiencing it on a frequent basis. it can lead to anxiety, depression and suicide. this is the first time social media providers will be legislated for on this issue and will be required to have processes in place for reporting and responding to complaints around bullying.
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but a senior conservative thought there was room to go further. whether we'd consider the role for a broader obligation that could be placed in statute on these companies linked to a failure to act whereby if someone's referred to that company evidence of harmful content and misleading content, illicit material that's been distributed on that site, where it's been reported report and the company failed to act, there's some sort of redress upon them. this is an important first step looking at the broader obligations of social media companies and i welcome that. whenever you open a bank account, book a flight online or perform many other common tasks, you hand over vital personal information. a committee of peers is investigating the sharing and protection of data between the uk and the eu, after brexit. do you have any concerns that
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are domestic legislation will affect our ability to share data with the eu after we leave and, are we going to find that there are restrictions on the way in which we can share data or they will accept the data? is it going to be an area of friction afterwards or do you see it being straightforward? the government's been clear that while we remain a member of the eu we are subject to the rights and obligations that that brings. at the point that we leave the eu, our domestic legislation, as i've said, will be compliant with eu law and should therefore not impede our ability the share data with the eu. should the government decide post—exit to amend our domestic legislation, then of course we'll need to consider whether any of the proposed changes will impact on our relationship with the eu, including on issues such as data—sharing. i suppose the question there is,
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and it's very hard to say now what we'd do afterwards, but we clearly need to — the question is, would the need to share data be a factor in deciding on a sort of way in which our legislation might develop after we've left? i think it's very clear that we need to share data for reasons to keep the public safe. yes, good. and that is a high priority and the prime minister's articulated that as well. on a number of occasions. you are watching wednesday in parliament with me alicia mccarthy. now, let's go back to that final prime minister's questions. one reason the speaker let the session run for so long was to allow mps who were standing
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down to put one last question to the prime minister. but before we get to them, there was one mp who got a very warm welcome from all sides of the house on his return to westminster after a life—threatening bout of the potentially fatal infection, sepsis. the speaker: mike wood. cheering thank you, mr speaker. it's good to be back and, to be honest, it's good to be anywhere! doctors and nurses at russells hall hospital saved my life injanuary, but each year in the uk 114,000 people are less lucky. will my right honourable friend look at how we can take the measures we can take to reduce deaths from sepsis, including awareness—raising, including a national registry to properly record the burden of sepsis and effective commissioning levers to incentivise best practice. the uk sepsis trust estimates that measures like these will save 50,000 lives over the next parliament.
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commons: here, here. the speaker: prime minister. can i say to my honourable friend that it's fantastic to see him back in his place and i hope he will have noted the welcome he got from across the house for being back in his place. but he's absolutely right to bring a focus on this issue of this devastating condition of sepsis and every death from it of course is a tragedy. but, as we know, something like 10,000 deaths per year could be avoided through prevention, early diagnosis and treatment. so we do need to get better at spotting sepsis across the nhs. the department of health is already beginning work on a new sepsis action plan. we're having a new public awareness campaign and we expect a nice quality standard to be published later this year.
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for other mps, it was time to say goodbye. the speaker: mr douglas carswell. what assurances can the prime minister give to the 3.8 million people that voted ukip at the last election, that if she is prime minister after the eighth june, the united kingdom will become a sovereign country again, living under our own parliament, making our own laws? i will give an assurance to all those people who voted for the united kingdom to leave the european union and for all people across the country, regardless of how they voted, who now want to see this government getting on with the job of brexit and making a success of it. that we want to see control of our borders, control of our laws, control of our money and this's what we'll deliver. a departing labour mp paid tribute to his colleagues who'd stood up for the steel industry. doesn't the prime minister agree that their ongoing presence in this place is vital for the future of our british steel industry? the speaker: prime minister. can i just say to the honourable gentleman that i believe he's standing down at the election, having said that that was to his significant and irreconcilable differences with the leadership of his party.
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this conservative government has taken steps to support the steel industry and will continue to do so. the speaker: mr robinson. mr speaker, it's been an immense privilege to serve the people of cannock and burntwood and aldershot for the past 34 years. i arrived in 1983 when one formidable and determined female conservative prime minister was transforming the country's economic fortunes and i depart as another is determined to restore to this country the status of a sovereign nation state, embracing the rest of the world. as i too bid my right honourable friend, the prime minister, godspeed for a resounding victory on the eighth june, may aldershotjust make one final plea in these troubled times. please will she ensure that her majesty's armed forces are properly funded, manned, equipped and housed to defend and protect the people of this glorious sceptred isle, the united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland. cheering sir gerald howarth. three years ago, the green party
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peer and london assembly member, ladyjones, discovered her name featured on a metropolitan police database of people deemed "domestic extremists." ladyjones had taken part in environmental protests and spoken at a stop the war rally. at question time in the lords, ladyjones criticised the compiling of such a database, believing police resources could be better deployed. a point she put to the minister. the definition of domestic extremism used by the police is not statutory. questions about the police definition and their work on domestic extremism are matters for the police. i thank the noble lady and minister for her evasive answer. quite honestly, of course it's a matter for the home office as to whether the police are misusing theirtime. there's now incontrovertible and huge amounts of evidence that says that the police are watching peaceful, non—violent campaigners, environmental campaigners, and, therefore, they are utterly wasting their time and not concentrating on the people who can actually cause terrorism. will the home office take this
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responsibility seriously about preventing serious crime and make sure that the police actually follow some reasonable guidelines on what a domestic extremist is. well, my lords, in terms of the police misusing their time, i don't agree with that point. and, in terms of the question and the misleading answer, the question read: "to ask her majesty's government whether they intend to refine the definition of domestic extremism." it is not our definition. in the last queen's speech — i appreciate we're towards the end of this parliamentary session, so the opportunity to do something about what was in last queen's speech is diminishing — promised a bill to look at preventing extremism. i understand that's been festering in the long grass ever since because of the difficulty in defining extremism. perhaps the noble lady could tell us
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whether it's going to carry on festering in the long grass or whether the government is planning, if it manages to be re—elected, to bring forward proposals which will define extremism and which might then define whether or not the noble lady is an extremist or indeed quite a number of us might be deemed by other colleagues in your lordships' house as extremists. so how will the government address that question because it told us it was going to in the queen's speech? well, my lords, clearly events have overtaken us. tomorrow, we will pirogue and it will be in the hands of the next government, and should that government be a labour government, to decide whether to bring forward legislation. but, yes, that was, at the time of the last queen's speech, our intention. in the 19805 when sheikhs were being persecuted throughout india and blamed and called terrorists and extremists. i was asked by the bbc, "am i a moderate or an extremists?"
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i replied, "i'm extremely moderate." such words have no meaning. we must get beyond these smear definitions and look to what is actually concerning us. well, i don't — as someone who is extremely moderate as well — i don't disagree with the noble lord. the point that i was making, in answer to the question, is that this definition was a definition that was actually made by the police. the prime minister has said she wants to open up new markets for welsh businesses following brexit. during a campaign visit to wales, theresa may said she wanted the "best possible deal" for wales. but in the commons, opposition mps accused her of "playing fast and loose" with the welsh economy. the prime minister has said that she's prepared to walk away from the negotiating table without a trade deal with the eu.
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the foreign secretary has said that no deal would be no problem. and yet no deal, as we've heard, could see tariffs of 30% to 40% on welsh dairy farmers and meat producers and 10% tariffs on welsh car manufacturers. so could i ask the secretary of state, isn't it the case that this tory government is prepared to play fast and loose with the welsh economy with an extreme tory vision of brexit that would push and put welsh jobs and livelihoods at risk? mr speaker, i don't recognise the basis of the honourable member's question. we want the freest, most open trading agreement and, it seems to me, that the real investors, creating realjobs, are taking us on our ambition. we've seen a major investment from nissan in sunderland. we've seen a major investment from toyota in derbyshire. we've seen a major investment in my constituency with aston martin. that demonstrates their confidence in our vision as we leave the european union. wales has a number of technological hotspots, particularly around cardiff and elsewhere. does he not think that they will benefit after brexit from bilateral trade deals that we'll be able to make with the united states, canada as well as the european union?
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in leaving the european customs union, welsh manufacturers and farmers will lose the solid protections offered by the bloc. why doesn't he come clean today and admit it is the intention of the tories to sell welsh producers down the rivers in order to open up markets with the bankers of london? well, the honourable member will recognise that exports from wales have grown over the last year, they've grown significantly by 6.2%. that is something he welcomes. he will also recognise the data i highlighted earlier about record levels of employment and low levels of unemployment. on that basis, he will recognise we want the freest, open trading arrangements that we can in support of welsh farmers because we maintain an active relationship with them. how does he respond to their requests for a full assessment on the impact of welsh agriculture should we be in a position of falling back on world trade organization tariffs? isn't it obvious that 40% tariffs would destroy welsh agriculture? mr speaker, i'm disappointed with the approach the honourable member is taking. i mean, he is assuming
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the worst—case scenario. we're having this general election in order to have strong and stable leadership in the challenging negotiations ahead. there are 27 eu nations that will be challenging everything as we negotiate to leave the european union. strong and stable leadership is needed now more than ever before. that's it from me for now, but do join me at the same time tomorrow for the last day that this parliament sits before the general election. but for now from me, alicia mccarthy, goodbye. hello again. our weather is set to turn a little bit milder over the next few days, quieting down in many respects. patches of frost first thing in the morning, especially in southern england and southern wales. a cloudy day. showers coming and going. we
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start off with them in the north of the uk. white cloudy. they go south through the day. down to the east as well. at the same time, whether world brighten up in the far north of england. temperatures in the afternoon peaking for many of us at 11 degrees. thursday evening. they go south. through the second half of the night, skies will clear. temperatures will fall away. patchy frost for scotla nd temperatures will fall away. patchy frost for scotland and northern england. towns and cities, temperatures staying a few degrees above freezing. the picture for friday. a quiet day. showers in east scotla nd friday. a quiet day. showers in east scotland and east england. some sunshine. turning mild as well. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name's mike embley. our top stories: war games in korea but calm words in washington. the us says tighter
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sanctions and more diplomacy are the way forward. a special report from egypt, centre of the multi—billion dollar illegal trade in human organs. two weeks after the us dropped the mother of all bombs, we get rare access to the afghan cave complex to find fighting still going on. and the new cold war. we join the arctic brigade as it warns the west not to interfere in russia's backyard.
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